300,000 Taels as Wager

"The captain isn't me, and I'm supposed to keep an eye on Madara? What kind of rotten luck is this."

Exiting the tent and walking on the gravel path, Kosuke said lazily, "Madara, you're leading the team this time, but the clan head asked me to keep an eye on you. Is that okay?"

Madara, walking to the side, stopped upon hearing this.

He glanced at Kosuke's listless demeanor, his brow furrowing slightly.

A moment later, he didn't object.

"Then I'll see you at the camp entrance tomorrow morning."

Kosuke's figure instantly vanished from his spot.

He wanted to go back to sleep for a bit longer; no one could stop him.

The morning mist had yet to dissipate, and Uchiha Madara's red armor was already covered in dew.

The armor of the four team members was also covered in dew, their figures appearing and disappearing in the thin fog.

They were all ninja who had experienced several battles, yet at this moment, they kept glancing into the mist.

"Is your captain always this slow on missions?"

Two of Kosuke's teammates exchanged glances, unsure of what to say, and could only silently agree with Madara's sentiment.

"Hey, hey, hey! What do you mean 'always'?"

A displeased voice retorted from the sparse mist, "Don't you know the saying—the early bird gets stuffed, the late hunter eats the best meat?"

Kosuke walked through the dew, a casual, unbuttoned weasel-skin vest draped over his black light armor, yawning incessantly.

Kosuke's two teammates simultaneously breathed a sigh of relief, but upon seeing the half-eaten rice ball he was holding and the sake gourd hanging from his waist, they tensed up again—those were spoils taken from the bodies of Senju scouts the previous night.

"Too slow!" Madara turned towards the maple forest, his red armor clinking crisply, "If you can't make it, go back and sleep. The Uzumaki barrier fluctuates once at the third watch of the hare hour. Now there's only..."

"Nineteen minutes and seventeen seconds," Kosuke suddenly interjected, tossing the rice ball into the air. "But I can get there within seventeen minutes."

Kosuke swallowed the last bite of the rice ball and squinted at Madara.

"Wanna bet? The loser does one thing for the other."

For some reason, Madara felt inexplicably uneasy at that moment.

"Boring."

He immediately ignored Kosuke and turned to walk out of the camp, his figure swaying and creating a gust of wind that lifted the stray hairs at his temples. "Follow!"

Body Flicker Technique activated!

Madara's figure left trails of afterimages in the forest, the sound of his red scales cutting through the mist like a hissing snake.

"Comrades, the revolution has not yet succeeded; we must continue to strive!"

Kosuke swayed his groggy head slightly, circulated the Chakra within his body, and leaped forward. His black light armor became a flowing shadow in the morning mist.

"Lord Madara!" the scarred Jonin suddenly lowered his voice. "There's an Uzumaki sentry post three miles ahead!"

"Leave it to me," Kosuke's voice came from overhead.

Madara looked up and saw him clinging to a tree branch, upside down, spinning the sake gourd on his fingertip. "Count to three, hold your breath."

As soon as he finished speaking, Kosuke's figure disappeared.

"One..." The sake from the gourd was flung into the air, condensing into tiny water droplets in the lingering mist.

"Two..." Kosuke's hand seals moved like lightning, Lightning Release Chakra gathering into a silver stream in his palm.

"Three!"

With a roar, hundreds of electrified sake droplets rained down like a storm.

The sake vaporized into a hazy white mist from the high temperature, and the Uzumaki ninja's cries were mixed with the crackling of electricity.

Kosuke leaped down from the tree, his cold blade instantly slicing across the neck of the sentry ninja.

His figure didn't stop, continuing towards the interior of the barrier.

Madara, following closely, saw this and instantly gathered his Chakra to bring his men along.

As the last sounds of fighting ceased, three Uzumaki strongholds recorded on the scroll had been eliminated.

At this moment, Kosuke stood among the corpses, shaking the scroll he had found. The thick smell of blood hit him. "How about it? Our bet is on, right?"

Madara stared at his red-glowing eyes, flicked the blood from the Kusanagi Sword, then suddenly reached out and snatched the scroll from his hand, putting it into his own ninja pouch. "We'll talk after the mission."

He turned and signaled to the four team members, indicating they should clean up the battlefield and prepare to head towards the eastern edge of the Uzumaki clan.

"If you use that crazy tactic again next time, I'll tie you to a flagpole and dry you into jerky."

Kosuke watched his retreating back, his lips twitching uncontrollably, and suddenly burst out laughing.

The morning mist gradually dispersed, and sunlight filtered through the maple forest onto the blood-stained soil. The figures of the Uchiha had already departed.

A few days later, eastern Fire Country.

In the elm forest where the morning mist had yet to dissipate, Madara's red plate armor and Kosuke's black light armor overlapped like silhouettes on the branches.

Sunlight pierced through the gaps in the leaves, weaving a net of light and shadow across their faces. Beneath Madara's eyelashes, his Two Tomoe Sharingan spun silently.

"Madara, where are we now?" Kosuke's voice was as crisp as the morning dew. He took a bite of dried venison, tilting his head back. "If we keep walking, the soles of my boots will wear through."

Madara glanced at Kosuke's shifting feet. A long tear ran up the side of one boot, a result of the blast wave from an Exploding Tag in a Senju trap three days ago when they'd left the battlefield.

He turned and leaped to another tree, the sound of his plate armor scraping echoing. Finally, he spoke, "Fifty miles to the Uzumaki territory."

Kosuke shrugged helplessly at this, leaning against an elm tree with his eyes half-closed.

Swish~

One of the two scouts who had gone ahead landed on a branch next to Madara. He lowered his voice, sketching terrain in the air with his fingertips. "Captain, Lord Kosuke, we've found a group of Uzumaki resting by a stream ahead. There are nine ninja and ten civilians."

Kosuke's half-closed eyes snapped open. His body flickered, and he appeared beside Madara.

"Did you spot their sentries?" Madara's voice was like a current beneath ice.

"Lord Madara, no," Mazuki licked his dry lips. "But eight of their ninja are surrounding one female ninja, and four civilians are serving her to fetch water."

A Sealing Technique!

The moment he and Madara met eyes, he saw the scene rising in the other's gaze.

It was from a year ago, during a mission in the Land of Rivers, when they'd first encountered a group of Uzumaki ninja, sealing something.

"Let's take her!" Kosuke crushed the dried venison in his hand. "Madara?"

Their gazes collided in the air.

"Let's do it!" Madara's plate armor suddenly emitted a faint hum, a sign of his Chakra boiling. "You and I will each get a kill. The rest..."

"The two of us will take on two more, and they'll surround and kill three," Kosuke grinned, revealing bits of meat stuck between his canine teeth. "Mazuki, notify Ryota, Kaju, and Sasuke to lurk in the shadows. Wait for Madara and me to make our move before fighting on your own. After it's over, immediately pursue the civilians. Don't let anyone escape our sight, or survive."

"Yes." As Mazuki disappeared into the dense forest, Kosuke reached into his Kunai pouch and drew out a specially made triangular Kunai, spinning it in his fingers until it glinted coldly. "Three hundred thousand Ryo says I kill more ninja than you."